So the news that he's set to play one of the most well known film character and real life gangsters that there has ever been is exciting indeed. He's going to nail that performance.

According to reports David Yates, who was looking rather busy after the completion of Harry Potter, is going to direct a film that will follow Al Capone through his younger years. Now while this initially excited me the write up of what the film will follow has me hoping that it's the older part of his younger years.

The write up tells us that:

...it will likely cover Capone's childhood in New York, his teenage years as a member of the infamous Five Points Gang and his move to the southside Chicago suburb of Cicero, where he made millions running illegal speakeasies during Prohibition.

What's also interesting is that the article says that this is rumoured to be the first of a franchise. You have to wonder with The Dark Tower failing and The Stand teetering on franchise opportunities why a young Al Capone is deemed more bankable.

The story from N.Y. Magazine through The Guardian tells us the film is called Cicero and Tom Hardy will be playing the famous Al Capone, although a younger version. Let's hope that the film doesn't stay too young for too long and leaps onto Hardy's character as soon as possible.

One of the things missed out in this story is how old this film is. The script was written in the seventies by Walon Green, the screenwriter of The Wild Bunch and plenty of television from Hill Street Blues to Law and Order, and it was written as a television series pilot, however the script never made it back then and now it's being adapted to a film, and possibly a series of films.

If it does go to a series, how far into the first film will we see Tom Hardy's age of Capone, and how much will that leave for further films to trace his history? One good thing is that it will leave a place for Hardy to play Capone right to the end.